Outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry says the Trump administration could do 'irreparable damage' to America's reputation and economy - but suggested his time in office will only last 'a year or two'.

Kerry told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the president-elect's plans were 'dangerous' and will 'injure' the credibility of the United States

He also delivered a stark warning of the dangers of economic populism, but insisted globalization would make a comeback in the future.

The speech is one of the last Kerry will make before he his replaced by Trump's Secretary of State pick, former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson.

John Kerry was applauded at the World Economic Forum in Davos as he appeared to say the Trump administration would only last 'a year, two years'

Speaking at an event moderated by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Kerry said of Trump's protectionist, anti-globalization program: 'We'll have injured our own credibility in... an irreparable way. Not irreparably. There's time, and that's just too dramatic.

'But we will have done great injury to ourselves. And it will hurt for the endurance of a year, two years, whatever, while the [Trump] administration is there.'

Kerry said: 'It's really dangerous to play to the lowest common denominator of American, of global political life.'

Trump won November's White House race having pledged to return 'American jobs' from production plants in China and Mexico, and the incoming leader has threatened to tear up trade deals.

This week Trump also declared the NATO strategic alliance 'obsolete' while praising Britain's decision to leave the European Union, predicting other members would follow suit.

Kerry admitted that 'certain people in political life' have tapped into legitimate anxieties about job insecurity in a globalized economy of free trade and capital flows.

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Donald Trump won the White House by pledging to return 'American jobs' from production plants in China and Mexico, and threatening to tear up trade deals

But he insisted automation rather than a shift toward foreign labor was what has hit the US workforce and argued that trade would help power the growth needed to bring new jobs.

Kerry also defended NATO and the European Union as guarantors of stability in a continent once wracked by war.

'I don't know where the new administration is going,' he said, of the new White House team that will replace President Barack Obama's administration on Friday.

'But my message, friends in Europe... is that Europe has got to believe in itself,' Kerry said.

'Europe needs to recognize it that the reason people came together was not just economic, in fact it was not just principally economic. It was to stop Europeans from killing Europeans,' he said, a reference to the First and Second World Wars.

Kerry argued that far from inheriting the enfeebled US economy Trump described in his campaign rhetoric, the real estate tycoon turned politician would enter office 'with the wind at his back.'

This could be put at risk by a disengagement from the world economy in the name of protecting US jobs.

'Now obviously the new president is tapped into the anger,' Kerry admitted.

'But has he seen the way in which this can be solved that doesn't undo economic opportunities and doesn't create more barriers and more turmoil?'

Kerry's stance was echoed by China's President Xi Jinping - who addressed the Davos forum yesterday.

Xi told attendees there was 'no point' in blaming economic globalization for the world's problems and no-one would win a trans-Pacific trade war.